DailyDirt: Weapons To Fight Terrorists...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Osama bin Laden's death has inspired quite a few stories about the military gear that special forces use against terrorists. It sounds like James Bond has inspired some of these weapons: stealth helicopters, dogs with titanium teeth... Here are a few more examples of these weapons.

I actually used to be a rocket scientist...

“There’s always a concern that a conventional warhead on an ICBM might be confused with a nuclear device – what can you do to prove otherwise... With a high lift vehicle, your trajectory would be so different that no one would likely confuse it with something more sinister.”

All right, this baffles me. If the new device can carry a heavy conventional warhead, why couldn't people suspect that it might be carrying a nuke?

Maybe because it would be an unthinkable break with tradition? Or because nobody would expect us to put such an expensive warhead on a vehicle that still can't make it through a test flight? (I'm clutching at straws here.)

Re:

I just read through a Human Rights Watch document (pdf) about the use of cluster munitions in Afghanistan.

I don't see anything near 98% being civilian. There are some, yes... which happens during a war, especially when terrorists like to hide amongst civilians hoping the US or others won't bomb the living crap out of them for fear of collateral damage.

Yes, unfortunately there will always be civilian casualties during war. But the difference here is, they are unintentional. The terrorists target civilians intentionally. That's something people like you and HRW apparently forget.

Re:

I had posted another reply last night, but it was flagged for review by the site and hasn't appeared yet (first time that's ever happened.)

Anyway, it had a link to to pdf doc for a human rights organization. In it, there were stats about civilian casualties. A village of about 12000 people was cluster bombed over about 6 or 7 days because the Taliban was hiding in the village instead of staying in their camp that was nearby. From that report, about 20, maybe 25, civilian villagers were killed. That's not even close to the 98% Nick is claiming.

Nick (and apparently you) only seem to want to blame the U.S. and put nothing on the terrorists that hide in the villages using these civilians as shields.

It's unfortunate, but civilians always have and always will be killed in wars. The big difference is that the U.S. does not do it intentionally (and if they do, they are punished for it) but when terrorists kill civilians, it's always intentional.

Re:

Also, in that story you linked to:

While the study didn't assign blame for the killings, death squads largely run by Shiite militias were believed to be behind many of the bullet-riddled bodies that turned up by the dozens on the streets of Baghdad and other cities – often stripped of any identification.

Those death squads were seeking revenge for the deaths of Shiite civilians at the hands of al-Qaida and other Sunni religious extremists in suicide bombings and other attacks.

And:

Only 4 per cent of the Iraqi deaths included in the study, or 2,363, were a result of US air strikes, which frequently targeted suspected insurgents hiding in houses. But 46 per cent of the victims whose gender could be determined were female and 39 per cent were children.

Aerial surveillance from a quadcopter drone can be used to track a person from over 2 miles away. So far, it seems like only South American drug cartels have had to worry about these drones, but that could change anytime.

Don't worry, the FBI and local police forces will be using them soon enough. In fact, I'd be surprised if they weren't already...